


Coward

by DeckofDragons



Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: Gen, Spy is a good dad for once, father/son bonding, important talk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-01
Updated: 2018-12-01
Packaged: 2019-09-05 00:05:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16799725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeckofDragons/pseuds/DeckofDragons
Summary: Spy and Scout have a talk about why Spy left.





	Coward

“So, Dad, want to tell me why you left?” Scout asked.

Spy shifted in his chair, he’d been reading comfortably until Scout had come in. At first it had been his normal chatter about various things but then _the_ question had come out of the blue. Spy had been dreading it since their familial relationship had become an open thing between them. It had to have been asked eventually.

“What do you mean?” he feigned ignorance to delay answering that much longer.

Scout frowned at him. “You know what I mean. Why’d you leave my mom shortly after I was born? You seem cool with being my dad _now_ , so why’d you leave back then?”

Unfortunately, even if Spy had his invis-watch on right now it would only at best delay this conversation. He could lie of course and say it had been solely for Scout’s and his mother’s safety, that _had_ been part of it after all and the reason he’d used back then to justify leaving them to himself. But he was older now and much worse at lying to himself even if he was better at lying to other people. But the question was, did he want to lie to Scout after finally starting to be honest with him after so long of keeping secrets?

“I was young and scared of being a father so… I faked my death and ran away.”

“Hmmm, okay,” was Scout’s response. No anger or jeering at him for being a coward, like it wasn’t a big deal to him at all. “Mom knew you were still alive though.”

“She did.” Spy had never been able to fool her as much he did most other people which is what had led to him falling so hard for her. Which resulted in Scout being born.

“She told me you were dead though, I believed it for a while too before I started to suspect she was lying. But… what’s changed? Why are you cool with being my dad now?”

More difficult questions Spy _really_ didn’t want to answer. “I… regret that I ran away.” It was the thing he regretted most in life. “I should’ve stayed.” How different would things have been if he had?

“How come you never came back then?”

“You really want me to say it again?” Spy scowled at him. He was being honest here, Scout didn’t need to take advantage of that.

“All right, fine, you were too afraid to come back, right?” Scout said and Spy gave him a curt nod, looking away.

“You going to call me a coward now?” Spy certainly _felt_ like a coward, having to admit it made him wish he could cuff Scout upside the head and tell him to leave. But he couldn’t, Scout was perfectly within his rights to ask this stuff.

“Nah, it’s in the past, no changing it now so… I guess I can forgive you and stuff ‘cause you’re here now and you were honest with me about it.” Implying that if Spy had lied, Scout would’ve been angry, rightfully so too. “But uh… you want to go outside and play catch or something? It’s getting kind of uncomfortable in here.”

Raising an eyebrow, Spy looked at him again. Yep, he was being serious, both about forgiving Spy and moving on to play catch – it was a silly game but Spy didn’t dislike it and there were _much_ worse things Scout could insist on doing as a father/son activity. “All right, fine,” Spy said as he stood up. “After you.”

Scout lead the way out. “And uh… how did we end up on the same mercenary team? Like uh… did you do spy stuff to make that happened or was it a coincidence?” His eager expression said he hoped it was the former.

“A coincidence.” Spy hadn’t even known Scout was signing on to become a mercenary until literally the day he joined the team as the final member. It had been a shock to say the least. “I think anyway. I looked into it, Miss Pauling knows but…”

“She does?”

“Yes, she does, so does the Administer. I don’t think they’d found out until after they’d decided to hire us though and I see no reason why either would want to bother reuniting us, so I believe that it is a coincidence.” There was of course the possibility that he was wrong but that wasn’t something that happened often so he’d trust his conclusions on this until given a reason not to.

“Damn, I was only one who didn’t know for a while there huh?”

“No.” Spy dismissed Scout’s worry with a handwave. “Soldier didn’t know, still might not even though we told him.”

Scout huffed and crossed his arms. “He doesn’t count, even Demo knew for sure before I did.”

“For what it’s worth, I… apologize for not telling you when you joined the team. I intended to but… never did.” That inner cowardice rearing its ugly head again.

“Uh… it’s fine, I think. I’m uh… not sure I would’ve handled that well anyway so… it’s whatever I guess.” Scout shrugged. “I’m bad at this stuff, let’s stop talking about it.”

“Agreed.” Ending any and all serious family related conversations was just fine with Spy. And now that they’d had this conversation, they never had to talk about it again and could carry on with their lives and play a silly game of catch instead.


End file.
